As Canada rings in its 142nd birthday today, a new report has come out that puts it dead last among G8 countries in its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We’ve even managed to come in behind Russia, a country which is planning to grow its emissions 30% by 2020. To beat that takes real talent.
Not surprisingly, the core of Canada’s climate troubles is to be found in expansion plans of the oil/tar sands projects in Alberta, in which massive deposits of bitumen (a tar-like substance) are exploited and upgraded into crude oil. This involves large-scale landscape transformation (a polite way of saying boreal forest getting ripped apart) and eats up tremendous amounts of water and natural gas in an extremely carbon-intensive process, leaving monumental tailing ponds behind that no one is quite sure what to do with. For an idea of what this all looks like on-the-ground, check of this set of photos: environmentally sound it is not. In fact, on almost any environmental scorecard- greenhouse gas emissions, land degradation, water pollution, human health concerns- the projects are probably close to the bottom of the global list, transforming a chunk of northern Alberta into what has been described as Canada’s Mordor (follow this link if the reference is unfamiliar to you).
The Alberta oil/tar sands have been the subject of much debate in Canada, with environmental groups decrying them as an unsustainable disaster and a stain on Canada’s reputation while the usual suspects (government, energy industry, financial institutions) have been more than happy to play the charade that what is a fundamentally unsustainable endeavour can be sustainable. The battle has become so political that there is even conflict over the terminology used to described the projects: vested interests have fought hard to replace the word ‘tar’ with ‘oil’ and have a fit any time the word ‘dirty’ is associated with its processes or the crude oil that results from it (this is perhaps a futile battle, as the extraction and processing of this bitumen certainly doesn’t seem clean).
On a politico-economic level, the province of Alberta has hitched its wagon to the development of the oil/tar sands. And the federal government, led by a conservative party with strong roots in the region, is happy to oblige. And this in no small way is the nucleus of Canada’s dithering on any meaningful climate action- because no matter how much hot air is blown about carbon capture and sequestration, the unsaid realization is that any real action on reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (not to mention other environmental issues) would likely spell the end for the oil/tar sands on any significant scale.
And so it was with a mix of bemusement and embarassment that Canadians got to watch some of their elected officials scramble around in a panic soon after the Obama administration arrived with its determination to do something about climate change. Suddenly, the survival of the oil/tar sands projects seemed to be the central focus of cross-border relations, with sales pitches to American interests vaunting the merits of ‘non-dirty’ ‘dirty’ oil to counter the loud noises coming from environmental groups to the contrary. As with so much else in Canada, the oil/tar sands political battle plays out through the prism of relations with our large southern neighbour- defenders of the projects claim that the US “needs us” for energy security purposes, while detractors try to raise awareness of the dire environmental consequences of the whole endeavour.
As a Canadian, I’m pretty disappointed in the leadership of my country. We have elected officials acting like used car salesmen, trying to peddle environmental catastrophe with a straight face and soothing, ‘non-dirty’ words. Inevitably, carbon capture and sequestration is touted as the solution, and you can bet that many millions of dollars are going in that questionable direction. There is even talk of building nuclear reactors to provide the energy needed for extraction- this strikes me as sheer escalation bias, characteristic of the end-stage of fossil fuel addiction. What is ultimately more economic- pouring untold amounts of resources and talent into making the extraction of a finite resource slightly less environmentally poisonous, or developing alternate sources of energy and not creating the whole mess in the first place?
Alas, I think it has become obvious to many that the driving imperative in our upper levels of government is not Canada’s long-term strategic interest but rather the survival of the oil/tar sands as an end in itself, with a secondary objective of trying to make it more palatable even if just in media terms. It is clear to me that a good chunk of our political class is mired in a reactionary paradigm in which a destructive addiction to fossil fuels is ‘inevitable’ because, well, nothing is done to reduce it. I’m saddened to think of all the alternative uses for money and human ingenuity in new energy, transportation and environmental technologies that are not being pursued because they do not enable the extraction of more oil.
Ultimately, it’s a shame how much long-term planning, thinking, creativity and resources in this country get poured into what is unavoidably a short-term play.